


aviary

by blooddrool



Series: Jonah Week [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Fear with a capital F, Knifeplay, M/M, Medical Kink, Painplay, Paralysis, not safe not sane barely consensual, panic/anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:13:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24785188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blooddrool/pseuds/blooddrool
Summary: “You seem so very small, like this,” Jonathan tells him, nothing but colors and shapes and breath on Jonah’s face, “Do youfeelsmall, I wonder?  I could do…  Ah–” he breaks off, ducks his head, laughs.  Laughs a laugh so light and breathless that Jonah aches to hear it.“I could do so much to you, like this."
Relationships: Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus
Series: Jonah Week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789657
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51
Collections: Jonah Magnus Week 2020





	aviary

**Author's Note:**

> Jonah Week day 3.
> 
> Prompt: Jonathan | "Medical examination"

The pinch of the needle in Jonah’s thigh is nothing compared to the sick twist of dread that accompanies it.

It– Oh, it feels a bit like being stabbed, he thinks. Not the needle. Not the spreading ache of the drug entering his body as Jonathan pushes the plunger — but the anxiety. The panic. The fever-cool rush of betrayal that comes from staring Jonathan dead in the face as he pulls it from Jonah’s leg with practiced ease.

It fills every inch of him, that betrayal. The raw shock of it. Jonah stands there, very nearly paralyzed with it, until he–

Until he remembers that this is something that Jonathan had made mention of, once.

And something that Jonah had agreed to.

Jonathan had asked — and Jonah had considered. Considered deeply. Stood there across from him, silent and staring, and _considered_ — all while Jonathan held his gaze, firm and steady. And Jonah tilted his head and considered. Risk assessment. Prediction weighed against knowledge weighed against trust.

And Jonah had told him _yes_. _Yes alright, Dr. Fanshawe,_ and Jonathan had blinked at him exactly once.

 _But–_ **_But_ ** _I fear you may have to surprise me. It’ll be a hard thing to allow, otherwise._

Well, Jonah thinks now, hissing to himself as air whistles between his teeth, color him damn well surprised.

Jonathan sets the needle aside. His hands find Jonah’s face quickly and plainly, cupping his cheeks in his palms, guiding Jonah’s head to look down into his eyes.

Jonah’s nostrils flare. He reaches up to grasp at Jonathan’s sleeves, something to ground himself against the stinging in his sinuses. His jaw aches where he’s clenched his teeth — so blinded in animal panic that he hadn’t realized he was grinding them. He fists his hands in Jonathan’s shirtsleeves, holds strong, and forces his jaw to let go.

He swallows and says, “Jonathan–”

“Hush,” Jonathan interrupts. He uses his thumbs under Jonah’s eyes to pull at his lower lids, inspecting him, and Jonah finds himself unusually captivated by the sheen of his skin where his glasses sit perched on his nose. The dark black swoop of his eyelashes behind them. The pink of his inner eye.

Jonathan taps him on the bridge of the nose with his thumb, not unlike the way a man might tap a dog’s snout to draw its attention. Jonah does not appreciate it — wants with a tight, sudden fervency to bite at him, snap at him with his teeth — but Jonathan is leaning forward, then, dragging him up by the face to press a kiss to his forehead. He stays there for a moment, mussing Jonah’s hair as he breathes. Fortifying himself, Jonah thinks. Or playing at it. They both know he doesn’t need to — not really.

“You’re going to go down quite quickly,” Jonathan tells him, and Jonah finds himself swallowing again, hard enough to hear his throat click. “Can you feel it setting in?” he asks.

Jonah opens his mouth, closes it. There’s a heaviness in his thigh, sunk deep in the meat of it, spreading down along his femur to his patella. He shifts his weight slightly, thinks better of it when his knee wobbles unsteadily beneath him.

“Yes,” he says. His voice sounds strange, even to himself.

Jonathan nods, and Jonah’s chest feels light and fluttery, full of air and feathers, the brushing of leaves and wings against the insides of his ribs. Like he’s got an aviary beneath his skin, glass for bones, birds for organs. Jonah’s fingers start to slip from Jonathan’s sleeves. The paralytic has only barely spread from the injection site; Jonah hardly notices over the sound of the flock trapped behind his sternum.

There are dust motes in the air.

“No, no,” Jonathan says, “No, Jonah. Don’t go away,” and Jonah’s attention snaps back to the line of Jonathan’s nose, so strong and Roman, the reflection of light in the lenses of his glasses.

“Don’t go,” Jonathan repeats. His hands are warm on Jonah’s face. “Stay here with me. Stay. And feel it.”

Jonah feels it. Jonah is _feeling_ it. He breathes deeply once, twice, captures himself in the dark gradation of Jonathan’s eyes, the empty black hole of his pupil. He shifts his weight again, and this time his knee buckles.

Jonathan catches him. He moves to Jonah’s side to wrap an arm around his waist, supports him like a crutch, coaxing Jonah’s own arm around his shoulders.

“Mighty quick, indeed,” Jonathan mutters, more to himself than to Jonah, but the satisfaction in his tone is for the both of them — and it loops around Jonah’s spine, coils tightly, bites into the soft discs between his vertebrae. Another plant for the birds.

“How long will it last?” Jonah asks. He is willing, at least in the privacy of his own mind, to admit that he is trying to distract himself. His voice is on a timer, anyways.

Jonathan leads them out of the sitting room, down the hall. He must be thankful, now, that there are no stairs on the way to his workroom. Jonah’s leg isn’t working right, down to his ankle now. He can feel the pull of his trousers, the squeeze of his boot, but his muscles don't contract when he needs them to. Jonah is puppet and puppeteer, both, but he feels like half his strings have been cut.

“Five to ten minutes to set in completely,” Jonathan tells him, taking more and more of Jonah’s weight as he loses control of his foot, his toes, “In full effect? Thirty or so.”

That a lot can be done to an unresistant body in thirty minutes goes unsaid, but the threat, small though it is, winds itself between Jonah’s ears anyways. He claws his fingers into Jonathan’s shoulders, and Jonathan’s hand on his waist mirrors the movement.

They come to a door at the end of the hall. Jonathan shoulders it open with some difficulty, pulling Jonah in after him. Jonah enjoys his workroom, most days. Suspects he will continue enjoying it — except for the way his throat constricts at the sight of the long, smooth wooden table in the center of the room, the stand beside it, gleaming metal tools already laid out across its surface. The only thing that’s missing, Jonah muses, bitter and excited and anxious and choked, is the body.

By the time Jonathan hefts Jonah up to sit on the edge of the table, Jonah has lost the ability to bend either leg at the hip. His arms feel clumsy and slow. Jonathan pushes gently at his shoulders, helps him lie back, stretching him out across the table. He cups the back of Jonah’s head in his palm, guides it on the way down. Jonah wonders if it’s truly necessary. But the muscles in his abdomen fail to support his weight as Jonathan presses him down, his belly and sides remaining soft and loose where they should be hard and tight — and Jonah realizes, _yes_ : it most certainly is.

Jonathan lays his head against the table with just enough gentle kindness to be practical. He moves down Jonah’s body, lifts his legs under the knees to lay them out flat, too. Arranges him neatly. Jonah can feel the chill of the table through his clothing, but when he tries to squirm, his body merely twitches. He can feel Jonathan’s hands on him, warm and practiced, but nothing happens when he tries to push into them.

He can still wiggle his fingers. And he can still follow Jonathan’s movements with his eyes, with slow, deliberate movements of his head.

“Your breathing should begin to slow, soon,” Jonathan says. He stands at the end of the table, bends over it slightly to begin removing Jonah’s boots. “Your eyes will be the last of you to go,” he continues, plain and pragmatic, even as he strokes the inside of Jonah’s ankle, “You will either blink yourself into darkness… or I will have to close your eyes for you. Knowing you, I’m sure it’ll be the latter.”

Jonah is sure, too. He watches as Jonathan pulls his boots off, places them out of the way beneath the table. He touches Jonah on the shin when he straightens back up, drags his fingers up to his knee, stops. Jonah feels it — he _feels_ it, that light tickle, the zing in his gut — but he can’t lift his leg, can’t bend his knee. Can’t invite, can’t reject.

His breathing has, indeed, begun to grow shallow.

Jonathan moves away from him, takes something from the tray of instruments at his side. Comes back with surgical scissors dangling from his fingers.

“Is speech beyond you?” Jonathan asks. He braces a hand on the table near Jonah’s head, leans over him to better see Jonah’s face.

Jonah suspects it isn’t. Beyond him. Not just yet — but the thought of opening his mouth, projecting sound, and finding that he cannot form the words he wants, cannot control the movements of his throat or his tongue, fills him with such strong, sinking dread that he cannot bring himself to try. He blinks, instead, relieved that he still can. Narrows his eyes up at Jonathan’s impassive expression.

It’s answer enough, and Jonathan’s mouth curls into a small, private smile, sharpened in the corners by that slick, slimy thing that has always been cause for concern. And cause for excitement. For _exhilaration_. Jonathan pierces him with that smile, now. Runs him through with it. And all Jonah can do is trace the shapes of his mouth with his eyes and hope that the table warms beneath him soon.

Jonathan leans down and kisses him again, just between the eyes. Jonah’s eyelashes brush his chin. His fingers have stopped responding.

Jonathan fits the scissors properly into his hand, handles shining smooth and silver between the peaks of his bony knuckles. He starts at Jonah’s ankles, slicing clean through the legs of his trousers, all the way up the seams, and Jonah’s chest feels stiff and small. His lungs don’t suck in air like they’re supposed to. His body refuses to give action to the tightness that settles in his throat.

There is a word for that tightness. That tickling, crawling sensation that pools just beneath his chin, strangling him. More plants in his chest cavity, crowding out the air and crushing the birds. There is a word for this thing — a word which Jonah knows, and respects, and revels in, and understands far better than most. But the naming of it in himself is difficult. Like pulling a tooth. Like stepping up to the noose.

It doesn’t matter. Even nameless, he is being hanged by it.

The scissors are bitterly cold where they grace his skin, snag on him just gently enough to be deliberate. The pain is scraping and dull, more the points of the blades than the edges of them, but Jonah feels each poke, each soft stab, with an acuity that sinks deep into his bones, runs like electricity through his marrow. There is nowhere for it to go. No outlet. Just himself, still and unmoving and barely breathing. Just a brain in a skull with a jaw that won’t clench.

Jonah watches the top of Jonathan’s head as he pulls away the ruined fabric of his trousers. His eyes begin to prickle in the corners, and Jonathan slides the scissors beneath the clothing at his waistline, cutting shirt and vest and linen wrappings all with the same detached air of professionalism. This is day-to-day, Jonah realizes. This is his career, his livelihood. And his passion, too — the way that any doctor finds himself _passionate_ about the art of autopsy. Each snip of the scissors, each slip of cloth in Jonah’s undressing, his uncovering: every bit of it an act of exhumation.

Jonah wishes he could shake with the revelation. Wishes, too, that he could at least swallow down the mucus and saliva building up on his tongue, the vines climbing the length of his trachea. 

“There we are,” Jonathan mutters. A man at work, speaking to an empty room, and Jonah realizes with a hazy, distant sort of startle that he is naked, now. He can feel the air on every part of him, warmer than perhaps it should be. The touch of Jonathan’s hands has disappeared. Jonah’s vision goes blurry, suddenly, out of focus and distorted by involuntary tears. He refuses to let himself blink.

The shadow of Jonathan’s head and shoulders appears above him, hovered over him the way a deer might hover over a fox it’s suffocated, crushed between earth and antler.

“You seem so very small, like this,” Jonathan tells him, nothing but colors and shapes and breath on Jonah’s face, “Do you _feel_ small, I wonder? I could do… Ah–” he breaks off, ducks his head, laughs. Laughs a laugh so light and breathless that Jonah aches to hear it.

He splays his hand out across Jonah’s bare stomach, hot against his chilled skin. He pushes, palpates firmly, just for the both of them to feel the give, the yield of Jonah’s flesh. Utterly soft. His hand wanders upwards, smooths a path of heat up from navel to ribs. To sternum. To clavicle. Lingers there, tracing the wings of Jonah’s collarbones with the tips of his fingers, middle and fore.

“I could do so much to you, like this,” he continues, whispers it out across Jonah’s lips, “Anything I wanted. Anything I could imagine.” His thumb finds Jonah’s chin, his lower lip, pulls at it with the pad of his finger. Slips inside, thumbnail tapping against Jonah’s teeth. He levers Jonah’s mouth open with disturbing ease, holds it with his thumb hooked down over Jonah’s teeth, digging into the soft, veiny wetness beneath his tongue. Jonah tastes nothing but salt and iron.

“I _have_ imagined, of course. Whole worlds of things to do to you — _just_ to you. Things to cut out, things to put in. More ways to ruin you, _just you_ , than I might otherwise be comfortable with,” he squeezes Jonah’s jaw until it hurts, creaks between the crush of his thumb and palm, “And you– You would _feel it all_ and _let me_. Because you’d have no choice but to let me.” He releases Jonah’s jaw with a breath that tastes cool and clean like glass in Jonah’s open mouth.

Jonathan straightens, the shade of him falling away to the bright orange and yellow light of the room. There’s a clink, a slow, dragging swipe of metal on metal, a nearly imperceptible swish of cloth. And then he’s back, and Jonah can hear the wet parting of his lips as he smiles. He closes Jonah’s mouth with a palm under his chin and a soft, hollow click.

“But you knew that,” he says, “and agreed to this, still.”

Something cold and thin comes to rest on Jonah’s chest, set down and centered perfectly where his ribs meet above his heart, his lungs — both of which continue on, beating and breathing with a steady sort of calm that is very, very far from him now. Jonathan’s hand brushes over his face, covers the width of his forehead, slides down and brings his eyelids with it, forcing them closed with the soft pad of his thumb on one, his middle finger on the other.

And it is a darkness like no other Jonah has ever experienced.

“Agreed to let me drug you,” Jonathan goes on, but his voice roars in Jonah’s ears now, just as the chill from the table and the cold from the instrument on his chest begin to chew into him, “Agreed to let me drag you here, lay you out like such a pretty specimen, cut you out of your clothes like a corpse,” and he reaches down to pluck the instrument up again, warm fingers the briefest respite from the cold, and Jonah feels completely, absolutely locked down. Locked down — locked _in_. Stuck in his head, in his body, alive and conscious and _feeling_ and utterly immobilized. Unable to so much as twitch.

Nothing at all besides a mass of firing neurons. Nothing at all besides a soundless, unheard voice. Nothing at all besides Jonathan’s hands on him, his surgical tools, and his words spoken directly into Jonah’s skin.

Jonathan shifts at Jonah’s shoulder, threads his hand gently into his hair. Pets at him. Rearranges the lay of his curls. He sighs deeply, sounding for all the world like a man at ease with himself, and mumbles, “You agreed to let me cut you, Jonah. And fuck you, after. Fuck you until you come twitching back to yourself. Bleeding. Speared open on my cock.” He huffs another laugh, moves to make the first of his promised cuts, pauses.

“What kind of man would I be if that weren’t enough?” he breathes, and Jonah has no answer for him. No answer that he would like to hear. No answer that would spare him from the truth of the thing.

Jonathan moves the instrument into position, clears his throat, says softly and at long last, “Let us begin, then.”

And then the blade of the tool — deadly sharp and hairthin, a scalpel held steady in the hand of a man who might one day fancy himself an artist — presses firmly into the skin beneath the flair of Jonah’s clavicle, divoting the flesh. Firmer. Firmer. Until it slices through, and the pain of it lances through Jonah like ice. Like frozen, frosted branches, snapped off from the trunk. Like ice caps cracking, breaking away.

It bites into him like nothing ever could. Like nothing ever _should_ — but his body does not flinch away, does not tense beneath the assault. Just lies there, still and willing, pressing up flush to the blade in its softness.

It hurts. He can _feel everything_.

He just can’t _do_ anything about it.

Jonathan kisses him, suddenly, presses his mouth to Jonah’s and kisses his unresponsive lips–

And pulls.


End file.
